


Dark, Gloomy, and Dead People All Over

by callmecloudybutdontreally



Category: Original Work
Genre: A lot of characters die, F/F, F/M, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Minor Character Death, Multi, My First AO3 Post, Past Character Death, Some Humor, Temporary Amnesia, Temporary Character Death, but its ok because they come back, man am i happy to be here finally, most of them - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:20:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21592963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmecloudybutdontreally/pseuds/callmecloudybutdontreally
Summary: "How's college?""Oh, you know. Dark, gloomy, and, as always, full of dead people.""Overreacting as usual, I see.""I'm not. I found Terry in the dumpster again. Went and got Professor Klei to bring them back.""Vegetable?""Only for a few hours."So I went and wrote a story about a universe where people can die and come back multiple times if they meet the requirements. Just a horribly long thing that I thought up after looking at memes.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), Original Female Character/Original Female Character, Original Female Character/Original Male Character, Original Male Character/Original Male Character





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> so this was spat out of my mind while i was looking at some memes. my head likes to go to weird places once it starts thinking, which is the entire thing that got me writing in the first place. since i just barf out ideas constantly i cant seem to be able to find a way to create one single story, then i get hardpressed to write more and yeah
> 
> this is one of those.
> 
> but its not a shitpost, like most other things that i have hidden away in my documents, and ive been actively working on this for awhile alongside something that my friend and i are creating and cramming into our schedules. this is one that i legitimately hope to be able to work on in time.

Every year, a group of students, near two decades young, would graduate, living one of two lives. Those with success, and those with failure. If you are successful, you live on, forever to be blessed with the inability to die permanently from anything but age or disgrace. If you aren't so fortunate, you live with a counter over your head, marking how many more lives you live with until the final one strikes, marking your free trial of immortality's end. Eventually, most people will end with these, attempting to go down the path of wrongful righteousness.

Most people die without realizing they are on their last chance. The counter is above their own head, only visible to certain people. Close friends, brutal enemies, families and not so much lovers, they could all see these numbers, the tallies above their head glowing bright both day and night. Morbid, is it not, that people can see if their loved ones are going to die permanently or live to tell the tale of whatever had killed them?

Captain America did say to walk it off if you died, did he not?

Generations come and go, each leaving a mark. Revolutionaries, they made the country on a set amount of lives, some not even making it past the war. Washington, succumbing to the infection that took over his throat. Uremia claiming the life of the writer of the declaration which made the colonies truly start revolting. Two hearts failed, a stroke, an inflamed lung, a bullet through the chest - each on their last time.

All the way up to the current generation, Gen H. From the revolutionaries forth, there have been more and more people figuring it out. More and more people becoming successful, more and more people thriving in the eye of Life, laughing in the face of Death.

Why, you may ask, has Death's doors not opened, the life system taken away?

Nobody has a clue.


	2. An Arm Here, A Leg There

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taylor doesn't like the fact that every time she finds her friends dead, they're missing some part of their body.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im gonna have fun with this

"Don't you have somewhere to be?"

Taylor shrugged. She didn't really have anywhere to go, now that she had finished her last class. Thomas was probably at the snack bar, knowing him, and John she knew was at the pool. "Laurence wants to smoke some pot. I'm not opposed to the idea." Honestly, getting high sounded like something that was very appealing to her, at the moment. Her mother would kill her if she found out, but what was she going to do? She was a month away from finishing high school, and throughout her junior and senior years she'd been doing exactly what her parents didn't want her to. Smoke, drink, date—everything dirty that she wasn't supposed to do. "I could use some of that relief.

Jonas hummed, continuing to scribble down notes. “That’s not the greatest thing for you, you know.”

A good friend of Taylor's, he was showing her around the college while she did her week of shadowing, introducing her to the professors and his other friends. Aaron, Lewis, Gil, they were great, just not like her own friends who she favored more.

Thomas, the hungry guy who spoke French and Spanish, was a great guy to hang around with. He was the oldest, having graduated the previous year yet waiting until the others graduated to go to college. He was a sweet man, always asking if anyone needed help, putting everyone else's needs in front of his own, more concerned about literally anyone else. Taylor knew his mother had raised him like this, because who else could be as thoughtful and caring as she? He was good in his classes, which was part of the reason people always asked him for help. He'd taken AP classes, graduated at the top of those classes, and was basically the guy who you'd expect to go to Stanford or MIT.

James, the bouncing boy with no sense, was a loud and rowdy kid. He'd be the kind of boy you'd expect to see leading a revolt against the teachers, yelling on top of a stand with a sign in his hand that read 'Student Strike! We demand NO HOMEWORK OVER THE WEEKEND!" He'd be Samuel Seabury, except he wouldn't be a loyalist.

Then there was Laurence. He’d run away from home at twelve, and lived off of whatever money he could make. Selling pot, cleaning houses, making people’s gardens look nice, throwing mail at the angry old man every old morning; He did whatever he could for enough money to buy himself a batch of eggs that would have to last two weeks. He was kind, but could get really fixated on certain things.

He was kind of like Taylor, and that was why she preferred his company over the others.

“I’m aware,” Taylor muttered, looking over to the notebook. “What does that say?”

“I’m making a list of locations and describing them,” Jonas said. “It’ll come in handy if you come back.”

“Its doubtable.” She replied. Even if she got a scholarship here, she didn’t think that she’d actually accept it. Not with how things were going on with her father, and especially not with her lack of moral compass.

“Doubtable doesn’t mean impossible.”

They were nearing a turn, Jonas leading Taylor down the right hallway. “Where are we going now? You’ve shown me all the classrooms?”

“No,” Jonas said. “This is where the student lounge is.”

And he led her into a mostly empty room, bookshelves lining the walls. There were multiple couches, arranged so that ottomans could fit where the normal coffee table would be, and a small, somewhat open fireplace in the center of the room. There was a type of woodstove feel to it, except it didn’t have any metal on the sides.

“This is where I spend most of my time,” he told her. “It’s chill in here, and everyone acts like its a library. No food, no drinks—apart from water—no shouting. Unless there’s a student meeting going on, or the Model UN group—from the highschool, not here—comes for a study session or debate.”

“Well, James certainly won’t like it here,” Taylor said, a smile spreading over her face. She could already see the stuff he’d do if he came to Columbus. The lounge wouldn’t be the first place to go—no, that would be the mathroom—but it certainly wouldn’t be the last. “If he does come here.”

“It’s debatable that the council would even let him in, with his record of student-led rebellions.”

“Oh, yeah,” Taylor agreed. “And even if not, they probably wouldn’t let him in because of The Incident.”

“Incident?”

She turned towards him, a look of confusion on her face. “You mean you never heard what he did in his freshman year?”

“No. What did he do?”

This was a story for the ages.

“Right, so,” She said, leading Jonas over to one of the sofas. “We were freshmen. You know how it goes when freshmen don’t like each other, right?”—Jonas was nodding—“Yeah, of course you do.” She took a breath, thinking of the straightest way to put it. “So, he and Laurence, they got together, and they, well. . .”

“They what?”

“They got together. As you know, James and Laurence are bi, and in our freshman year a teacher hated the LGBTQ+ community. He even made it clear that if anyone openly shared a relationship or their sexuality and it wasn’t straight, he would not be forgiving.

“In the beginning of the year, two girls had been in a relationship prior, and he forced them to break up, otherwise he would make them fail. After the first month, they split up, not because they didn’t love each other anymore but because of this teacher.

“So, one night, Laurence proposed to me the idea of getting one of the other teachers involved. There was one in particular who was crushing hard on him, and everyone knew. The guy even was fine with people talking about it, but it absolutely infuriated the other teacher. So, James asked me if I would like to say my mind during the assembly at the end of the quarter, and I said yes, because why not.

“Well, the word got around about what we were planning, and the teachers began warning me, so I handed it back to James. I told him I would call him up during the ceremony, along with the teachers. He basically told me that he was fine with it, then he and Laurence went to bed.

“The assembly came around, and I was on stage for a small bit, before I called up those two teachers and James. I handed him the mic, then walked off the stage to sit down for a few minutes before I was going to be called up for the semester honor students awards, along with a couple of other people.

“He goes up there, and”—Taylor was snickering, on the verge of laughter—“He holds up a bible, makes the two put their hands on it, then says, in a horrible British accent; ‘Ohi pronounce thou, husbando and husbando. May your waifu’s forever be satisfied.’ Then he walks off stage, and ignores the other teacher, who is coming after him.”

Jonas is snickering too, trying to be quiet. “Did he really say that?” he asked, aloof.

“Yes,” Taylor said. “He really did. And everyone kept saying congratulations to the teachers, which only made it funnier. Though Mr. Avid had to ban it, because everyone was getting constant detentions from the teacher. I never really cared enough to learn his name.”

“What did you call him then?”

“Asshole.”

Terry wasn’t answering their phone, which wasn’t usual for them. They weren’t available half the time, so it didn’t bother Taylor.

Well, it didn’t until two days later when she found them in a dumpster, missing their arm. She groaned, pulling them out, then hopping back in, rummaging through bags and garbage until she came across what looked like their arm.

“How in hell did this happen?” She asked herself, tossing the arm out, following soon after. This was so annoying to have to do so often. Sure, to everyone else, seeing their friends dead bodies was a haunting thing, but for her it happened on a regular enough basis for her not to care as much as she probably should’ve.

She tossed their body over her back, Terry being a light person (thankfully). She put their arm in her bag, giving it a bored look before she closed it. Taylor had been on the other side of town, and it would look kind of weird for a senior in highschool to be carrying another senior who had previously been in a dumpster.

It wasn’t that weird around these parts, thankfully.

She walked past a cafe, looking inside and noticing people staring at her. Likely tourists of Colombia City. Or newcomers. Either way, she didn’t pay as much mind as she should’ve—though she did wave at them. Was that good enough?

After half an hour, Taylor had managed to walk to Dr. Klei’s house, and she rapped on the door five times before she stepped back.

One knock meant that a new visitor was there, and wanted to offer them something. Two knocks meant that a family member had come, three meant that someone needed to tell him something urgently, four meant that someone needed medical care, and five meant that somebody was dead and needed resurrection.

Terry certainly looked dead.

After a few moments he opened the door, looking pleased to see Taylor.

“Why, hello Taylor.” He greeted, smiling. “Who is it this time?”

She entered the doctor's house, placing Terry on the table. There were two in the house, one metal one for resurrections, and the normal one for dinner. She placed them on the metal one. “Terry. They’re dead, again.”

“Poor Terry. Where’s the arm?”

“Right here, Sir.”

She handed him the arm, not caring that it was inside her bag. It hadn’t bled too much, not with the way she had set it.

“I’ll have to reattach it.”

“I know,” Taylor said. “I’ll come to pick him up later. Text me when he’s back.”

“You aren’t staying for dinner?” Dr. Klei asked. “That’s unusual.”

“I can’t,” She said. “I’ve got to go to my apartment. A package arrived there recently, and, well, Mom wants me to come home. Sorry Sir!”

Before he could respond, Taylor was out the door.


End file.
